Early-morning blaze kills boy, 3

mom badly injured

May 19, 2003|By Barbara Sherlock, Tribune staff reporter.

A young boy died and his mother was critically injured when fire swept through a two-story apartment building on the Southeast Side early Sunday, but rescuers saved three other children, authorities said.

Thomas Maldanado, 3, of the 8600 block of South Houston Avenue was pronounced dead at 5:20 a.m. at South Shore Hospital, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

Mario Arita, 28, said he smelled smoke between 3 and 4 a.m. in the rear first-floor apartment he shared with the boy's mother, Carmen Vargas, and three other children, including the couple's 13-month-old daughter, Alexandria Arita.

The fire engulfed the rear bedroom where Thomas was sleeping in a bunk bed, Arita said.

He said that with helphe was able to get three children out through a side window and back door.

"I wanted to go back in for Thomas, but it was too hard; there were a lot of flames and smoke," he said.